Re: [Tails-ux] Surface pro4 issue

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Author: Peter N. Glaskowsky
Date:  
To: Tails user experience & user interface design
Subject: Re: [Tails-ux] Surface pro4 issue

>> Do the Volume keys have any effect? Also I’m not clear on whether you have the keyboard attached. I’m not sure if you really mean “touchpad” as opposed to “touchscreen.” Shame on Microsoft for not making the touchscreen properly emulate a mouse at boot time, which would enable the use of a virtual keyboard. In any event, I have been suggesting for a long time that the features and philosophy of Tails would be especially valuable on tablet devices, but the work to get Tails to run on tablets— particularly Intel-bassed Windows tablets, which would relatively easy to support— hasn’t been prioritized. .
>
> Yes, the keyboard was attached and the arrow keys did nothing. And the touch screen was not responding to touch input either. Sorry I forgot to mention these.
> I didn't think to try any other specific keys but the volume rocker key on top of the tablet would have only given two directions and would not get the cursor to move down and sideways.


Okay, thanks for the feedback.

Speaking in theoretical terms, not related to the Surface specifically, even just two working buttons could be enough for a simple welcome dialog: one button to advance from one field to the next, another to select the next option on the current field. But there’s no standard for exposing the existence of buttons in the pre-boot environment (as far as I know), and it would be difficult for the TAILS project to write machine-specific boot code for every tablet out there.

I’d still like to see us pick one or two popular platforms and get TAILS running on them, but until the resources become available, I’ll just have to keep waiting. :-)

Best regards,

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